Pamphlet
by JoeMerl
Summary: All of Coach Oleander's hard work meant nothing. Or did it? In the end, maybe that pamphlet wound up doing some good after all. A one-shot focusing on Oleander and Raz. No pairings.


**Author's Notes:** My first Psychonauts fic, which I've wanted to write ever since watching the opening sequence. I don't know how many people will wind up reading this---this is probably the smallest fandom I've ever written for (why isn't this game more popular?!)---but hopefully someone will like it. :-)

* * *

No one would have believed how much thought Coach Oleander put into that pamphlet.

Coach Oleander wasn't the type to spend much time thinking about anything before he said it; he yelled, he barked orders, he blustered and said stupid things meant to put others down and make him feel bigger. He was hardly a tactful man, or even a particularly smart one---but this pamphlet was _his_ brainchild, and he wouldn't so much have thought about letting anyone else write it, regardless of how many suggestions Agents Nein or Vodello made. And Coach Oleander worked _hard_ on it, harder than they or anyone else could have been trusted to.

Being a Psychonaut was a dream come true for Oleander. In this job nothing else mattered---not his past, not his height, nothing but his raw psychic power and the dedication he was willing to put into training it. To him, being a Psychonaut represented endless opportunity, the chance to go beyond all your limitations and do things normal people could only dream of. _That_ was the message Oleander wanted to put into that pamphlet, the hope he wanted to offer all those young cadets he imagined suffering just like he had. So he worked hard on it. He worked and crafted each word carefully, obsessively, like some great literary genius working on a poetic masterpiece. (He had even considered _making _the pamphlet a poem to emphasize the point, but couldn't come up with a rhyme for "psychic dojo"). And when he was done he read it and reread it over and over again, listening for any tiny nonexistent flaw, reciting to himself until the words were chiseled irreparably in his mind.

Oh, there were complaints. Vodello wanted to change his inspirational tone to something more "upbeat." Nein thought it was too "confrontational," the higher-ups thought its wording seemed geared too exclusively towards kids from non-psychic homes, but Oleander pushed it through to distribution anyway. And then there were the parents calling in---some to complain about the pamphlets' accusations, some honestly confused about whether Whispering Rock was for _all_ psychic children or _just_ the ones who had been abused or neglected. Oleander scoffed at those---yeah, right. How many of these non-psychic parents were being honest, claiming that their kids' lives were all sunshine and lollipops at home, away from anyone who could understand them or the issues they faced? And campers like Boole and Phage didn't do much to strengthen their case.

Oleander knew his pamphlet was sound. He knew that no matter what they all said, it would be a clarion call to the cadets in need, calling them out of their wasted lives of mediocrity to the destiny they were born for.

So Oleander was positively crushed by that first batch of students who came into his care.

_These_ were the kids he was supposed to be training? _This_ was the batch of soldiers he was supposed to prepare for entry into the Psychonauts, the most elite psychic fighting force in the world? These kids---all they seemed to care about was laying around like a bunch of lilly-livered salamanders, more worried about _swimming _or _nature walks _than soaring across the astral plane or engaging in any enemies of free thought. Oh, there were a couple who showed _some_ promise---Truman Zanotto's daughter was brilliant, of course, and the Love girl was one of the few to say she actually wanted to be a Psychonaut at all. But even these few soon turned to disappointment---Zanotto was put off by his enthuasiasm and soon lapsed into apathy, while the other one was much less interested in Oleander's psychic workouts than in psychology and wound up wasting most of her free time playing music in the Lodge anyway.

Oleander tried, he really did, but the fact of the matter was he had no idea how to instill enthusiasm in these runts---it should already _be_ there, damn it, and it wasn't halfway through the first summer on the job before he found himself becoming bitter and depressed. And his feelings grew every day when the kids rushed to Milla's dance class after only _dragging_ themselves into Basic Braining, as the girls swooned over Sasha's accent while ignoring the lessons he was trying to teach them.

Over the next few years, Oleander lost all hope in his job, and his bitterness grew. And as he lost faith in all that, soon he lost faith in the Psychonauts too.

And then, one day, Oleander finally met a cadet who actually cared.

Razputin Aquato wasn't like the others---he was different, not even like Lili, who had always been too close to the organization to really see it with stars in her eyes. He didn't need his _mommy_ to drive him there---this boy trekked to camp, by himself (did he walk, hitchhike, levitate? No one knew) just to be there, and when told to leave he didn't jump up happily like half the campers would have, or even moan and complain about missing "all the fun"---he stood his ground (er, sat his seat, anyway) and challenged his orders, arguing and cajoling and demanding the right to stay.

And he'd read the pamphlet.

Not just read it, either: he had it _memorized,_ just like Oleander himself.

He could have wept, really he could have. He was stunned, all he could do was stand there mouthing the words with this new boy and feeling his heart expand in his chest. On one level he was thinking of his new plans, his traitorous plots with Dr. Loboto---_this_ was just the sort of brain they needed, a fighter, as strong as most adults and eager to show it---but deeper, in a part of himself buried under so much pain and frustration that he hardly even remembered it was there, Oleander was in awe that finally, _finally, HERE_ was the cadet that he had been waiting for! He wouldn't have to coddle this one, he wouldn't have to cajole him, this one would take what Oleander dished out and sulk if he got anything less. Oleander hadn't had so much fun during a Basic Braining in years---and fun from actually _teaching_ for once, rather than _just _from torturing those other good-for-nothing brats.

Oleander had thought that this kid would be perfect for the Brain Tank; gifted as he was, he didn't honestly expect that Raz could have foiled his plans, gotten past Loboto's security and even defeated _him _and the very death-machine he had worked so hard (almost as hard as on the pamphlet!) to design. And he _certainly_ hadn't expected him to fight him with nothing but his own _brain,_ and to force his way into his mind to fix mental problems Oleander didn't even realize he had.

But that boy did it. Because he was a true Psychonaut, more than any other cadet, even more, Oleander was ashamed to admit, than he had been himself, giving up hope like that when the boy never did. He had known it ever since the boy first showed up at that campfire ceremony, and afterwards whenever Oleander saw a copy of his pamphlet he was touched---truly, sincerely honored---that it had been _his_ words that had spurred that boy on, that even when Aquato had been _fighting _Oleander he was nevertheless a cadet that Oleander had created---and, in a bizarre turn of events, the very one who would recreate Oleander, that pamphlet working, as if by fate, to let Oleander write his own redemption.

He had become one hell of a Psychonaut, that young cadet, and Oleander couldn't have been prouder to have helped make that possible.

And one day Oleander decided to tell him that. After all was said and done, and he went back to teaching camp and Raz was now the youngest Psychonaut in the organization's history, Oleander took a copy of his pamphlet out of his drawer and told Agent Razputin Aquato about his loss of faith and how he, just by being the great cadet that he was, had started to restore even before he ever went in to face the phantoms in his mind.

And the boy's response?

"'Mental mojo.'"

Oleander drew back, startled. "Uh...what?"

"'Mental mojo.' That could've rhymed with 'psychic dojo.' It's alliterative, too."

Coach Oleander just blinked and stared at him for a long moment. Then Raz's face broke into a mischievious grin.

"Eh, but a poem would have seemed hokey anyway," he said, shrugging his uniformed shoulders and waving a gloved hand. "Don't change a word; I like it fine the way it is."

* * *

**A/N:** Was this confusing? Because I was trying to capture Oleander's "voice" for this and he doesn't seem like the kind of person to use first names a lot.

The original title for this story was going to be "Memorize" or "Memorized," by the way. I'm not sure if this one is better, I might change it later.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and please review! :-)


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